


And the Smallest of Gestures

by orphan_account



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Ableism, Alternate Universe - Different First Meeting, Alternate Universe - Soulmates, Background Ginger/Merlin, Background Lancelot/Percival, Canon-Typical Violence, Deaf Character, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, M/M, Not TGC Compliant Otherwise, Soulmate-Identifying Marks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-16 05:45:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,235
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15430272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Harry had always had a gift for languages.  His teachers all said as much, so perhaps he would also always have been fascinated by the different ways in which people communicated with each other.  Perhaps not, though.  Perhaps there was a part of him, one very deep down, that had always known what his five decades on Earth had since borne out.  He was incomplete, and subconsciously compensating for the one form of communication he could never have by obsessing with all the others open to him.





	And the Smallest of Gestures

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SingerQueen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SingerQueen/gifts).



> Title from "All This and Heaven Too" by Florence + The Machine.

It was a party, of sorts- one that Harry wouldn't normally have been caught dead at.  He made a strategic retreat as soon as he felt able, slipping into one of the upstairs bathrooms and gazing balefully into the mirror a while- and, through it, at Merlin. "Remind me again why this was so damned important," he said. 

"Your host this afternoon is one John Emerson," Merlin told him.  He sounded as if he was reading aloud from a briefing, because he was doing exactly that- it was the same one he had given Harry earlier that day.  _Funny man_.  "And our friend Mr. Emerson has been buying and selling all manner of unsavory things.”  Harry was aware of them; Emerson dealt chiefly in weapons of the experimental and extremely dangerous variety, but it was apparently common knowledge in certain discerning- read: criminal- circles that he could get a person absolutely anything they required- if the price was right, of course. 

Harry found something slightly amusing in that, considering where he was now.

Merlin continued: “You are to make contact with him, and judge as best you can if it will be possible for one of our people to approach him undercover in the future- and perhaps track down some of his buyers through him- or if it would be more effective for Kingsman to simply dismantle his operation now."

“Yes, yes, I know all that."  Harry chose not to roll his eyes then, because one of them- bionic, Merlin's creation, currently allowing the quartermaster to see whatever Harry did without the benefit of the glasses Kingsman agents normally used- could never be persuaded to behave quite... _naturally_ when he performed the action, but he thought about it.  "But why did it have to be here?"

_Here_ was a pool party, largely disrupted by an unexpected rainfall.  It was a relatively warm storm, splitting the sky as it did in late summer, and a few of the guests entertained themselves by chasing each other through the estate's gardens and lawns.  The pool itself was shielded by a large awning, but Harry had noticed only a few people using this as an excuse to swim.  Harry hardly blamed them, since the party itself was an excuse: for the attire, the way the people mingling in and outside the house were dressed.  The way they were hardly dressed at all.

They all wore swim suits- some with a towel tastefully arranged here or there, some not.  The dining room, ballroom, and front hall of the house brimmed with half-dressed bodies and roving eyes.  Even with his work as an excuse Harry was acutely embarrassed to be there- ashamed, even.  And since Merlin frequently called him shameless, and for good reason too, that was saying something.  He didn't know how the people here did this- came to parties like this one, in some cases regularly.  Put themselves on display in every conceivable manner.  Barred flesh with swimsuits just to better show off the unmarked skin of the not-yet-mated, and say without words _see me, look at me, don’t you think that I could be the one for you?_

Apparently, one the many things that John Emerson could find for the right price was a soulmate.

“This was the safest place,” Merlin added, something else Harry technically remembered from his briefing.  Emerson surrounded himself with bodyguards near constantly, but for an event like this he almost always took the time to greet his guests.  It was one of the few situations in which he let his guard down enough for someone like Harry to have a little chat with him.  Which didn’t mean Harry had to like it. 

“Nonsense,” he said accordingly.  “I would feel safer in a minefield.”

“And I suppose you would also feel safer in some secret warehouse where a weapons deal was being negotiated?”

“I think you know the answer to that.”    

"Unfortunately, yes.  I do."

Since the injuries which rendered his bionic eye necessary, Harry had seen little serious action, and he had never yet gone anywhere without Merlin’s personal supervision.  He knew that was exactly how Merlin liked it, how Merlin would operate with every Kingsman agent if he could, but he missed the thrill of going into danger- and he missed the calm of no critical voice in his ear. 

And then there was the party itself, the hunger for a soulmate palpable on the air.  That was almost more than Harry could bear.   

Harry could claim that he often managed to avoid thinking about soulmates altogether, but it would be a lie.  It was difficult- it was nearly impossible- to so much as walk down the street without being reminded of them, or of the fact that he had not yet found his.  That he was empty.  That at his age it was likely he would remain so.  But he didn’t… ache for a soulmate the way the rest of the people at this party clearly did.  They were certainly all very rich, but the price of an invitation was nevertheless steep enough to be prohibitive even for them, unless they were truly desperate.  Arthur had grumbled about the cost of the operation for ages.  Harry, for once, had enthusiastically agreed- but Merlin had not been swayed, and so Harry had been left to wait for Emerson, struggling all the while to make conversation with whole masses of people who evidently only cared about one thing. 

When a person met their soulmate, marks bloomed at the palm of their dominant hand and- over the days and weeks and months that followed- these marks grew and wound up their arm and shoulder, up and up until they reached the heart.  It was said that by the time this happened, a person would be fully in step with their soulmate.  Complete.  It was said that, though there was no way to know beforehand when this process would begin or how quickly it would finish once it had begun, surely anyone who would never be mated would know that about themselves, would feel it somewhere deep inside, always.  Maybe this was some lingering prejudice against the unmated.  Or maybe it was because imagining whole scores of people waiting their whole lives for a match that would never arrive was just too sad.  

And Harry, well- Harry had always had a gift for languages.  His teachers all said as much, so perhaps he would also always have been fascinated by the different ways in which people communicated with each other.  Perhaps not, though.  Perhaps there was a part of him, one very deep down, that _had_ always known what his five decades on Earth had since borne out.  He was incomplete, and subconsciously compensating for the one form of communication he could never have by obsessing with all the others open to him. 

But of all the ways Harry knew people could communicate with one another, the ones he had seen at this party had to be the saddest.  And whatever else he was- whatever he _lacked_ \- at least he could say that he wasn’t here of his own free will.    

Merlin sighed, breaking Harry out of these thoughts.  “Do please get yourself moving, Galahad.  I really shouldn't have to tell you how important this is.”  

Still unable to effectively roll his eyes, Harry gave in to the childish impulse to stick out his tongue instead.

“Very professional."

Harry actually felt a bit better.  He even smiled faintly as he finally left the bathroom. 

The house was a large one, practically labyrinthine, and it took Harry some time to find his way back to the main hall.

Along one wall he passed, a line of robes waited for anyone who did find their soulmate at the party.  That way they could cover up any blossoming marks and keep them between their soulmate and themselves.  Harry marveled a little at such late appearing modesty. 

Along another wall, an open door led to a library- empty of people, but packed with books- those on the nature of soulmates given pride of place.  Some were scientific, others philosophical, others still pure romance.  Harry wondered if this was simply for the benefit of any guests who might wander in this direction, or if Emerson was actually as obsessed with soulmates as anyone, despite his criminal career.

And people were obsessed.  Harry understood loneliness, of course he did- and the slow way years turned hope into despair- but he also found it all just a bit silly.  What were the chances that people who had not found their soulmate thus far would just happen to find them at a party like this?  Statistically, it just wasn’t likely.  And yet here all these people were, pairing off, staring down at each other’s hands and arms as they chatted as if just such a miracle really would happen.

Harry might acknowledge that soulmarks did come from some higher power, somehow- but he didn’t believe in miracles.  

He had known- biblically and otherwise- plenty of unmated people, over the course of his life.  There weren’t many mated pairs in the spy game.  Harry knew only two sets personally- Lancelot and Percival, and Merlin and Ginger- and even they were not uncomplicatedly happy.  Lancelot and Percival had such wildly different skillsets that they rarely worked together, and thus often didn't see each other for months at a time.  Meanwhile, Ginger belonged to their counterpart organization in America.  She and Merlin saw even less of each other than Lancelot and Percival did- a fact which never seemed to bother them overmuch.  As far as Harry could tell, their love was largely one of the mind- not the rarest of situations.  Even wholly platonic soulmates were more common than romantic literature tended to suggest.

So Harry had seen masses of unmarked skin, during missions and the harried liaisons he made time for around them.  None of this was anything new.  And his own body was hardly the blank page poems talked about.  Life had left dozens of marks on him, even if his soulmate had not.  Merlin and his minions had done their best to cover those scars with makeup today.  In his fine suit, with his proper manners, Harry could make himself seem relatively harmless.  But he was uncovered now in more ways than one, and it wasn’t so easy.  If Harry’s soulmate was here now it stood to reason that they would like these things in him, or they wouldn’t be his soulmate at all- but Harry's soulmate wasn't in this place, and not just because of statistics.  They simply _couldn’t_ be at a party like this, not if they were any mate of his. 

Harry emerged out into the ballroom at last and lingered by the buffet table he found there- Emerson had certainly gone all out with the catering, Harry discovered- but his obvious desire to be elsewhere was not enough to keep someone from approaching him. 

She was a pretty woman, with pale curls and elegant cheekbones, about ten years Harry’s junior- and about, he had to confess, the age at which he might have started to grow desperate if he hadn’t had so many of unmated colleagues to remind him that there was nothing wrong with him- at least, nothing wrong with him that plenty of others didn’t share.  Her bathing suit was dark, more conservative than some he could see, but it showed off her figure to an effect that Harry supposed would make anyone here glad to find that they were meant for one another. 

Harry could charm if the mood struck him, but it had been a long time since he was truly good at making small-talk, and of course there was only one subject this woman would likely want to talk about.  “I’ve sometimes thought I would feel it on my skin the moment it happened," she told him, predictably.  "The moment I met the one.”

“Feeling anything now?” Harry asked, confident that she wouldn’t.

“No,” she replied, though she did twist and turn her bare arms, examining them with a faintly wistful expression.  She cocked her head to one side, eying him.  “It seems silly to you, doesn’t it?”  Her tone nearly stopped it from being a question altogether.  She gave a laugh, then, one that made Harry feel sorry for her in a different way than he had before.  She just wanted so much to be understood.  That was all anyone here wanted.

And whatever else he thought about these people, this party, and this place he couldn’t really blame them for it.  “Not at all,” he said as he realized that it was true.  He had not expected it to be, or to share a real part of himself with anyone today, but he heard himself add: “My mother always told me that she did.  I... I don’t remember her as well as I would like, but I remember how sure she was that I would be the same."

That much was true- but Harry had left out the sad parts.  How long she waited.  How little time she and his father ultimately had, and how utterly she fell apart when he was gone.  And how fondly Harry had imagined- long before time had given him reason to think it might be true- that he would never find his soulmate at all.  Because he hated everything about it, hated that his mother had to love his father so much that when he died her own life hardly mattered to her anymore.  Not everyone was like her- Harry knew it now- but when he was young that didn’t matter.  What mattered was that _she_ was, and he had felt very much alone.

Harry cleared his throat.  Such thoughts did sometimes put an ache there still, even after all these years.  “Do you come to these events often?”

She shook her head, sipping wine delicately.  “This is my first time, actually.”

“Are you enjoying yourself?”

She nodded, then shot him an amused look.  “And you’re not.”  That time, it really wasn’t a question. 

He shook his head.  “It’s been such a long time,” he said, mostly meaning it as a dig at Merlin- who was surely still there, listening in.  Emerson certainly was taking his time arriving, wasn't he?

Judging from her sympathetic look, the woman read it in the more obvious way.  “I’ll let you move on, then,” she said.  “I do hope that you find them, whoever they are.”

Harry took the out she had given him, and slipped away.

He ducked into another corridor, weaving around hopeful pairs of people as they chatted about this and that.  “I mean it, Merlin.  I may not be able to feel marks appearing, but I can certainly feel some new grey hairs.  If our man doesn’t get here soon, I’ll-”

“Don’t bother with threats,” Merlin said.  “He isn’t coming.”

“So this has all been for nothing,” Harry said.  He sighed.  How long had Merlin known that?  The whole time Harry was talking with that woman?  Longer?

“Chatter is that there’s been an incident at one of his warehouses.”

“Should I seek him out there, then?” Harry asked, trying not to sound too eager at the prospect of a shootout in a warehouse after all. 

“No, no- our new Kay is tailing Emerson as we speak.  There’s no rush for now.”  Their new Kay had been in the organization for nearly a year by that time, but she would be their new Kay for a while longer yet. Kingsman was slow to accept even the smallest change.  “Stay and enjoy the rest of the party.”

Harry snorted.  He knew he was being teased, knew Merlin knew exactly how much he wanted to be absolutely anywhere else. 

Which, Harry decided, meant that he ought to stay for a little while longer.  Just to prove that he could, that he was heartier than Merlin evidently thought he was.  But he did need to get away from all these people.  Otherwise he was bound to tell someone what he really thought of this whole thing.

He made his way down the new corridor he had found, passing another line of robes as he went.  He considered them for a moment and after only a brief hesitation pulled one on, covering himself.  He felt better immediately.  After that the few other guests he saw shot him envious looks but otherwise left him alone.  They thought he was spoken for. 

Harry swung around the kitchen, and beyond it found an exit.  Possibly this had been a servants’ entrance at one time.  Possibly it still was. 

Harry stepped outside and rested his back against the cold stone wall, where the awnings would shield him from the rain.  It was at times like this that Harry wished he hadn't quit smoking- which he had done on Merlin's advice some years ago.  It would have been such a good way to get out of that room, such a good excuse to linger outside without prompting questions he had no desire to answer.   

Harry scanned the grounds for a while- his view all green grass and grey skies- and he saw a van some distance away and a young man carrying boxes from it to the kitchen.

Harry couldn’t help watching him.  He wasn’t tall, but he was very fit; the line of his shoulders was firm and strong beneath what seemed to be to the official costume for Emerson’s employees at the party: a white button-down and a dark vest, both of these damp now and clinging to him gorgeously.  The way his light brown hair, also wet from the rain, fell against his forehead was like something out of a poem, and the shape of his jaw was sharp enough to _cut_. 

Initially he seemed absorbed in his work, but when he noticed Harry he startled faintly.  His hands sprang into motion- the sign for, “What?” in BSL, which looked to Harry like a kneejerk- and defensive- response to being spied on, and a faintly hostile one at that.

Harry signed back, quickly: “Am I disturbing you?”

“No.”  The young man softened a little- though whether that was because of Harry’s response or the manner in which he gave it Harry didn’t know.  “You need something?”

“No.”  Again Harry wished for the convenient excuse of a cigarette.  “Just getting some air.”

The young man even cracked a smile there- a teasing one, Harry guessed, from what he said next: “Want to help while you get that air?”

Harry pushed out from under the cover of the roof.  “Why not?”  He followed the young man towards his van, the young man walking backwards to keep him in view.  “Do you work here?”

“I sometimes make deliveries.”  The young man jerked his chin toward the stack of boxes in the van.  There hadn't been too many to begin with, and he was nearly finished.  “I’m E-G-G-S-Y.”  He spelled it out and then gave Harry another sign that Harry copied carefully. 

He replied, “I’m H-A-R-R-Y.”  Eggsy smiled at him again, and introductions thus dispensed with Harry made his way closer to the van.  “What should I do?”

Eggsy looked more amused than anything as he showed Harry which boxes to grab.   

Only once Harry had grasped one did Merlin finally decide to pipe up: “I’m glad that you’ve decided to get involved in the community,” he started.  “But I can think of a better use of your-”

Eggsy showed Harry where to set his box down again at precisely that moment, and once his hands were free Harry deactivated his comm with the control hidden in his cuff-link.  After all, he wasn’t technically working anymore, was he?  He would pay for being rude to Merlin later, of course- but right at the moment he couldn’t bring himself to care.  He followed Eggsy back to the van.

*   *   *

Communication came slowly as they worked.  With arms full of boxes half the time, they could only sign in starts and stops, and though Harry had been learning for a while his command of the language was far from perfect. 

“I’m still new to this,” Harry admitted at one point, after they had taken shelter under the awning and could converse more easily- though from the way Eggsy frowned much of the time he had already guessed as much.  And though he frowned, he also huddled close to Harry and not just because the dry patch that the awning afforded was so small- or at least Harry fancied as much.  Eggsy was understandably tactile- which Harry was not, and most of his friends were not, and that made it thrilling.  Perhaps too thrilling. 

By then Eggsy knew that Harry was hearing, and his eyes lit with a strange light when he asked Harry why he had learned.  “For a family member, or-”

He went still, and Harry considered his answer.  He believed that Eggsy had enjoyed his company thus far- though perhaps not as much as Harry had enjoyed his, since he still thought Eggsy was a vision in his damp clothes with his bright eyes, and Harry could hardly compare in his purloined robe.  But Harry was good at reading people, and beneath Eggsy’s outward ease Harry could read wariness and suspicion.  

This was someone who was used to going unheard in more ways than the obvious.  Someone who had learned to preempt it- fairly, perhaps- with the faint hostility Harry had seen in him at first.  If he wasn’t so expressive, if his face and body language didn’t tell Harry more even than Eggsy himself might wish it to, that hostility would probably have been all Harry saw.  But it wasn’t.  “No,” he replied quickly.  It was a truth, if not the only truth. 

Harry had learned to sign because he knew almost a dozen languages, and he had wanted to know this one. He hadn’t expected to use it with anyone in particular, but over time he found more and more chances to do so. With the woman he saw almost daily in the park, whose dog he had always admired.  With the chef of a small but wonderful restaurant, who often came out to receive his compliments in person. With the former agent Lamorak, who in his old age was paying the price for a lifelong fondness for explosives.  Harry had known, for as long as he had been learning other languages, how they opened up a different corner of the world- and he always appreciated it.

But he had never appreciated it more than he did today- and for no other reason than because it meant he could talk to someone he liked more than he could remember ever liking anybody.

“Would you go inside with me?” Harry asked, moving to lift off the wall.  “If you’re hungry, I saw some food inside that looked promising.”

Eggsy caught Harry's arm and began- “But isn’t it kind of-” and then he stilled again and wouldn’t finish.

“Kind of what?” Harry asked him.

“Nothing.”

But by then Harry had realized exactly what it was “kind of”.  Sad.  It was _sad_ in there.  Eggsy’s empty palm was, initially, difficult to miss with his hands always flashing across Harry’s vision- though later Harry had started to wonder if he hadn't been wrong, if there wasn’t something there after all.  But whether Eggsy had someone already or was unmated still, he was young.  Of course he would think a party like this ridiculous.  After all, Harry thought the same, and unlike Harry Eggsy had plenty of time still to learn that finding your soulmate was nowhere near as easy as they made it sound in school. 

And there Harry realized that he was sympathizing with the people at this party again, and again he would have rolled his eyes if he hadn’t had an audience that would find it alarming- so instead he signed: “Sad, right?  It’s kind of sad in there?”

Eggsy actually flushed faintly.  If he hadn’t just been thinking about how _young_ Eggsy was in comparison to himself, Harry would have gone breathless with want to feel how warm that cheek was under his lips.  As it was, Harry didn’t.  Not even a little bit.  It would be rather inappropriate.  “Yes?”  When Harry didn’t look bothered, Eggsy grew less tentative.  “Yes.”  A slow and puzzled smile started on his face.  He still didn’t seem to know just what to make of Harry.  

And probably this would be just another thing about Harry that Eggsy wouldn’t know what to make of, but Harry had to try.  He would be kicking himself for a long time if he didn’t.  He considered his next words for a moment or two, formed them with careful hands, “Would you be interested, apart from that?”

Eggsy hesitated, and Harry wouldn’t pretend not to understand why.  He had felt, more than once over the last hour or so, as if he and Eggsy had known each other for ages- but even so he could hardly forget the way two unmated strangers typically danced around things, trying to figure out if the other person wanted friendship, or if they were interested in seeing someone besides their soulmate.  In the circles Harry happened to travel in- mostly fellow spies who never had and likely never would find a soulmate at all- it was just a question of asking, but for many people it still carried a whiff of taboo.  In terms of what Eggsy might want, Harry found- somewhat to his own surprise- that he didn’t entirely care.  He would be happy just to talk with Eggsy for a while longer- and equally happy to take him to bed.

Then again, Harry thought as he felt a rush of blood when he imagined seeing if Eggsy looked as good out of those wet clothes as he did in them, seeing if Eggsy looked as beautiful when he came as Harry now imagined that he might, maybe he wouldn’t be _equally_ happy.  But he would be content.

“Yes,” Eggsy finally replied.

Harry grinned.  “Then come with me.”

Eggsy did, lingering close and looking bemused as he followed Harry though the kitchen and down the hall, letting Harry wander around corridors without protest until he found the library he had first discovered on leaving the bathroom.  It was just as empty as it had been when Harry first glanced inside, and just as promising. 

“What do you think?” he asked.

Eggsy only shrugged.

Harry laughed and watched as Eggsy turned around himself, taking in the room’s high shelves and higher windows, and examining a few of the books.  In fact, it was difficult for Harry to take his eyes off him, but eventually he did.  “Would you wait for me a moment?” he asked.

Eggsy just shrugged again, but he also smiled faintly.

Harry slipped back out into the main hall and gathered two plates.  He managed to pile them both high with food and then leave again without garnering too much attention.  He had to assume that the other guests still thought that he had found his soulmate among their number and wanted to spend more time alone with that person.  Harry found it surprisingly warming to contemplate this misapprehension.

Before returning to the library Harry also went back to the bathroom and also got a few towels.  He tossed one to Eggsy, who grinned and caught it, ruffling his hair dry.

Not so damp now, they sat down together at a table near the window and ate and talked for a while. 

Even slowing himself down for Harry’s benefit, Eggsy was a wonderful conversationalist. But the conversation quickly turned back to sign, since it was something they both already knew they shared.  Eggsy wanted to know more about how Harry was learning it and why.  Harry wanted to know if Eggsy knew many other hearing people who had learned it, since Harry himself knew relatively few.

“A couple of my hearing friends know a little.  And my sister is amazing at it.   I taught her when she was little.  My mum tries but she could never pick up much.  And…”  Eggsy hesitated, a little flutter that never became anything more, and didn’t continue.

Harry was forced to conclude that there was another person who had been even less successful, perhaps deliberately so.  It made him wonder about Eggsy’s home life, made him want to know more- and to maybe even _do_ something about if he could.  But he thought better of pestering Eggsy for more information than he seemed ready to give.  They hardly knew each other, after all.

And just because Harry desperately wanted that to change didn’t mean Eggsy felt the same way about him.  He would be better off simply enjoying the time that he had.   

So, Harry just nodded.   

Eggsy looked relieved, then thoughtful, then hesitant again- as if a new subject had occurred to him and now he wasn’t sure how to broach it.  “How did you end up-” he stilled once more- “where you found me?”

“I walked there.”

Eggsy made face.  “But-” a hesitation- “why?  Were you not having-” another- “a good time?”

Harry was reminded of his conversation with the woman he met inside, and thinking of her helped him to understand what Eggsy was getting at.  And he should have expected it, should have expected Eggsy to be more curious about the party itself.  Even if his delivery had nothing whatsoever to do with the party- which wasn’t likely, now that Harry thought about it- he still had to have some idea of what was going on inside that house.  And one of the only other things he knew, or at least thought he knew, about Harry was that he had paid to attend.  Of course he would ask questions about it.  Of course he would make assumptions because of it.     

“I had to be there.”  Harry didn’t have the command of sign to explain why, nor did Eggsy have the clearance to understand it, but Eggsy seemed willing- even happy- to simply nod and leave it at that. 

“Would you-” Harry began, not quite sure how to finish.  If he asked what he found himself wanting to ask, then there would be no mistaking him or what he wanted- what he had been wanting more and more since they they entered the library together.  Life, Harry decided at last, was too short- especially for a man like him- not to try, so he went on: “Would you like to get out of here?”

Eggsy’s face finally had too much on it for even Harry to begin to read.  Certainly there was a yes buried in there somewhere, and a part of him did want to give it form, that much Harry could be sure of- otherwise, Eggsy wouldn't have struggled for so long.  But in the end he answered, “Better not.  I should get home.”

Harry conjured a smile.  “Then might I walk you back to your van?”

“Better not.” 

“All right.”  Harry thought, briefly, about asking for his number, but suddenly the likelihood that Eggsy had grown bored, or only ever felt sorry for Harry to begin with, was too great, and the guilt for taking up so much of his time was too extreme.  Harry couldn’t bring himself to try again, however short life was.  “Goodbye then,” he said- and, when they parted, Harry clasped Eggsy’s hand and tried not to hold on for too long. 

All the rest of that day, Harry’s mood was sour. 

Harry had lived alone for most of his life, but his home had never seemed quite so empty as it did when he returned to it that night.  He knew that it might take a while for that feeling to go away again- but he also knew that it _would_ , just as it had gone away before, although he could never quite bring to mind a time when he had felt exactly like this. 

He had left his borrowed robe in Emerson’s house after he and Eggsy went their separate ways, and he felt… uncovered in ways he hadn’t earlier that day, or indeed ever before in his life.  He looked strictly up, out the window of the Kingsman cab or at the horizon, all the way home.  And when he arrived, he stripped off what clothes he still had on and discarded them with far less care than usual- after all, when would he ever want to wear them again?- before he stepped into the shower, shutting his eyes and soaping off tiredly. 

The sight of Eggsy’s smiling eyes and beautiful hands flashed through his mind as his own fingers worked lower, toward his groin, but he didn’t have the energy to take it any further.  Maybe later, he thought without any particular shame.  He was unlikely to ever see Eggsy again- and though he felt another pang, even stronger now, at the notion it did also give him even less reason to be embarrassed about thoughts Eggsy would never learn about.

It wouldn’t be long, Harry supposed, before Eggsy had forgotten about meeting him altogether.  Indeed, it was possible he already had. 

With that melancholy thought strong in his mind, Harry dried off and went to bed.  He was asleep almost the moment his head hit the pillow, and when he dreamed, he dreamed that he had Eggsy at his side.  Always. 

The next morning, Harry finally looked properly at own his hand- and when he did, he said every curse he knew. 

In his palm, right were Eggsy’s work-calloused fingertips had brushed as they shook hands farewell, there was a mark.  Across Harry’s pale and worn skin, lines and swirls had erupted in light and color, forming strange patterns that looked to Harry like the trails Eggsy’s hands might leave, if that was possible, as they moved through the air while he talked. 

Because the mark- the _soulmark_ \- was there because of Eggsy.  Harry was as sure of that now as he had been, only the day before, that he wouldn’t find a soulmate at all.  It couldn’t possibly be anyone else. 

*   *   *

For a while after Harry felt only shock.  And when he could finally think again, his first thought- oddly enough- was of that woman at the party. 

_I’ve sometimes thought I would feel it on my skin the moment it happened.  The moment I met the one._   That was what she had said to him, and now- in the privacy of his own mind- Harry could admit that for all his reticence on the subject and all his bad memories, a part of him had still thought the same.  He almost wished she was here with him now, so that he could tell her: he didn’t feel a thing.  Maybe having a part of oneself slot into place at least was too natural a thing to feel like anything at all. 

His second thought was that he had to talk to Merlin straightaway. 

“I need to find someone,” he said, the moment he had his comm activated. 

It said something about Merlin that even though it was incredibly early, he answered the call immediately.  But, of course, he had his own reasons for that; he always did.  "I tried to contact you last night."

"I'm sure you did, but I-"

"This was the one time I actually relied on you not caring about anything but work, instead of hoping against hope that you would just quit for five minutes and learn to knit or something, and you let me down."

"I'm terribly sorry, but you see-"

"Emerson went back to that party after all, you know.  Kay carried on watching him and got some useful intel, of course- but that was still several hours- not to mention a great deal of money- wasted."

Harry thought about pointing out that if he had simply gone home after Merlin told him Emerson wasn't coming, as Merlin had obviously expected him to do at the time, the result would have been the same.  But, of course, if he had done that, he would have been every bit as annoyed about missing Emerson as Merlin was.  But all the aggravation Harry had felt the day before seemed a very long way away now, so he simply waited Merlin's tirade out.  

Eventually Merlin sighed and said, "Who is it you want to find?  It's that young man from before, isn't it?  How do you think Arthur will like that?"

Again Harry waited, this time for a pause long enough to reply. "I don't suppose Arthur will appreciate such a misuse of Kingsman resources, no."  And it was a misuse of resources- and a rare one, since Kingsman agents didn’t often find such a connection at all. “But I don’t have much choice.”  He lifted his hand so that Merlin could see it through his eye and inspect his palm to his heart’s content. 

“Ah.”  Merlin sounded like he hardly believed it.  Which was fair, since Harry could hardly believe it himself.  When he thought about where he had been the day before, how he had found Eggsy in what was simultaneously the most and the least likely possible way, all he wanted to do was never think about it again. 

And yet at the same time, he felt a little... stung.  Was it really so difficult to believe that he had a soulmate after all?

But, of course, it was- and with good reason.  At Harry’s age it had naturally seemed as though he didn’t, to Harry as much as anyone.  And even Merlin- relentlessly pragmatic in most areas and yet a hopeless romantic where soulmates were concerned- had long ago abandoned any notion to the contrary and had often shot Harry a pitying sort of look over the years. But most members of Kingsman, from the time Harry joined to the present, had taken it in stride.  Chester King, who recruited him- and who Harry liked to avoid thinking about as much as possible- had assumed Harry didn’t have a soulmate longest of all.  It had probably been his favorite thing about Harry, which wasn't saying much.  He had heartily regretted his choice more than once over the course of Harry's career.      

“Give me ten minutes,” Merlin said.

But in the end it only took him five.  By then Harry had a cup of coffee in one hand and his tablet in the other, a report detailing Eggsy’s short academic success and long criminal record before him. 

He had an address too- the estate where Eggsy’s mother had a flat and lived with Eggsy, the little sister he had spoken of, and the stepfather he had not. Harry ate a little breakfast- he didn’t find he had much appetite- then dressed and made his way there. 

Of the house’s occupants, it was Eggsy who answered the door.  He had on a truly hideous jacket, evidently thrown over boxers and not much else, in his rush to answer the door.  Harry, by stark contrast, had put on his favorite suit before coming here.  The further contrast between this and their costumes when they first met was not lost on Harry.  Then Eggsy had looked so put-together in his work uniform, and Harry could not have been much flattered by that ridiculous swimsuit, and now…

Now Eggsy was looking at Harry in undisguised astonishment, though Harry was forced to assume that was because of his presence at the flat at all, rather than the sight of him in a suit.       

Harry simply lifted his marked hand and held it up.

Eggsy nodded jerkily and didn’t otherwise reply.  He didn’t need to, just then- the way his lifted trembling hands to hold Harry’s, to turn it this way and that and explore the mark said more than enough for Harry.

Later, when Harry was inside with Eggsy and seated at the flat’s small table, Eggsy explained that he had and typically used a hearing aid, but he had taken it out the day they met because it was a misery in the rain.  This meant that Harry could, technically, talk out loud to him if he wished- though Eggsy would still need to be looking right at him to really understand, and sign language was still how he preferred to communicate, so that was how Harry decided he would continue to talk with him.

He was learning a great many new things that way.  For instance, Eggsy swore a great deal- teaching Harry a quantity of new words- as he told Harry that he had been afraid, when he found his mark the night before, that he would never see Harry again.  “I thought-" Eggsy hesitated, tried a new explanation.  "You had that robe on.”      

"And you thought that I did because I met my soulmate at that party and then spent the rest of it talking to you instead?"

Eggsy smiled ruefully.  "Not likely?"

“No,” Harry agreed, as carefully as he could.  He laughed softly.

Eggsy grinned in return, after a while- though Harry suspected he felt as keenly as Harry found he did that if they didn't smile or laugh they would be shaking with fear, to think of what they could have lost without ever having.  “I didn’t think that the whole time that we were together,” Eggsy went on, “I just-”

“Assumed I was… someone else’s and didn’t think about it again?”

“Something like that.”  Eggsy’s face went slightly red, as though there was definitely more to it, but he didn’t say anything else and Harry didn't want to push him on it.  He was clearly embarrassed, and rattled from almost losing Harry without ever really having him.  “Otherwise-”

He didn’t finish- nor did he need to, because Harry completely understood the moment Eggsy lifted his hand, palm cupped like he was scooping water, to reveal a series of geometric shapes upon it, too abstract for anyone to understand but Harry, who did- they were stacks of boxes, stacks of books, stacks of appetizers.  A stolen afternoon on a rainy day, in what was the most obvious- and yet also the least obvious- place in the world at the same time.  

“Fancy finding a soulmate in a place like that,” Harry joked.

Eggsy nodded.

“Well.”  Harry considered what to say next for a while and finally signed, “Nice to meet you.”  He felt the lack, suddenly, not just in his knowledge of sign but his command of every other language as well.  That phrase was so trite, used in too many situations and too often carelessly or even sarcastically, and that word- _nice-_ was so lacking.  And then there was the word _meet_.  There were languages that had multiple words for that, and all of them had one which meant not just _meet_ but _find_ , and were meant to refer specifically to one’s soulmate.  The same was often true of _you_.  

But then Eggsy smiled, shy yet hopeful, and replied, “You too.”  And that was enough for now- or, at least, it would have to be. 

Eggsy was so very close to Harry at the table, close enough to lean in and dip his hand into Harry’s pocket before Harry realized it and fish out phone Merlin made him keep there, normally for use under various covers.  Eggsy typed his number into it, something wonderfully fierce in his expression as he did so.

“I don't text much,” Harry warned him.

“You can learn.”  The swoop of Eggsy’s eyebrows and the sharp motions of his hands registered halfway between a question and a tease, like both and neither at the same time.

“Yes.”  For Eggsy, Harry thought he could do just about anything.

*   *   *

The first time they went out, they went for a walk in the park near Harry's home together.  It was terribly clichéd, but Harry had discovered that he desperately wanted to show it to Eggsy. 

“It’s beautiful,” Eggsy told him when they sat down on a bench overlooking a fountain.

Naturally Harry agreed or he wouldn't have brought Eggsy there.  By then summer was beginning to nudge up against fall, the leaves on the trees just flirting with changing color, and the rose bushes and neatly cropped hedges that framed the paths through the park were lovely.  Not that Harry really noticed.  He thought about replying with _like you_ or something similarly romantic, but he tripped over himself when he tried and instead he offered to get them both coffee.

There was a cart at the edge of the park and Harry lingered there briefly.  He was the last man in the world to expect finding his soulmate to be easier than this- he was the last man to expect easy at all- but he would have expected to feel more sure of himself now. 

On his return Harry lingered again, hovering beside a statue, watching Eggsy.  As Harry watched, the deaf woman with her golden retriever passed by and caught his attention.  They appeared to know each other, which Harry wasn't too surprised by.  It was a small world that way.  They chatted for a while, and Harry found it remarkably beautiful to watch them converse without having to participate or even understand.  But eventually she moved on, and Harry knew their coffees would get cold and that it was rude to stare and to keep Eggsy waiting. 

Eggsy grinned at Harry when he arrived and passed on one of the cups.  Eggsy had his phone in his hand, and he set the cup aside to send Harry a text.  _Thanks_ , it said. 

“Really?”  Harry looked from his phone to Eggsy sitting right there next to him.  

“It’s practice.  Practice with me.”

"Okay," Harry agreed, sitting beside him on the bench.  He typed and sent, _Am I right to assume you enjoy texting?_

_I'm a millennial, Harry_ , Eggsy sent back.  _Of course I do._ He was grinning, his elbow brushing against Harry's side.  Then he added, _I spend a lot of time on computers and stuff_. 

_You certainly type quickly_ , Harry replied.  He felt like a sloth by comparison.  _I’m glad I got you out into the sunshine, then._

Eggsy only lifted an eyebrow in answer.

Harry said, _One of my dearest friends also spends a lot of his time on computers.  Getting him out into the air can be a trial._   Writing and sending all that was also a trial.  He could see Eggsy’s faint smirk and knew that he knew he was struggling.  That this made Eggsy smile, Harry found, made it easier.

Eggsy sent, _I’d tell you to learn text speak to gain valuable time, but I think it might be a little too weird._

_LOL._

_Stop it._   Eggsy nudged him with an elbow, not hard, and he was beginning to grin widely by then.

It was truly one of the most beautiful things Harry had ever seen.  He wanted to say so aloud, but again he did not.  He wanted to do many things- chief among them, to press his lips into the dimple that grin pressed into Eggsy’s cheek, but he did none of them.  It seemed to him that the distance between them- soulmates or not- was still too big for that- but he could not have said in that moment whether the distance was of his making or Eggsy’s. 

Eggsy had smiled at him a great deal, brushed up against him a great deal, and touched his arm a great deal- but Harry could not make up his mind that these were, on their own, good signs.  Eggsy had been like that before, and he had turned Harry away before- and yes, that was before he found out that they were soulmates, but being soulmates did not mean everything was understood between them. 

_That_ would take time, and for now Harry did not wish to jump into anything he couldn’t plainly see that Eggsy was ready for.  Surely he was good enough at reading people to know when the time came.  Surely he was not so hesitant to be unsure now without good reason. 

So he just smiled back, just filled his eyes with Eggsy as long as he could. 

They spent the day together, and later when Harry went home, alone but contented, he found another mark.  He saw it peeking out from underneath his shirt-cuff, wrapping around his wrist like a bracelet.  They were so tiny and so closely spaced together that Harry had to press his nose almost against them to see what they were: emojis and scraps of text speak.  He would have found them ridiculous if they weren't so subtly beautiful, if it didn't sing so wonderfully through his mind that whenever he was cold and tired and alone but for a voice in his ear on a mission, whenever he woke in a cold sweat from a dream that had him convinced he was a monster, he might look at those marks and laugh, and smile, and know that he was actually never really alone. 

*   *   *

Not much changed directly after that, and yet every aspect of Harry’s life struck him as immeasurably different.  There was a contact with Eggsy here, the beginning of a new soulmark there… all so very new, but sufficiently spaced out by their variously busy lives that the immediate affects on his existence were not always obvious- and yet in every little thing Harry saw and did he thought of Eggsy, and that put him in everything, even when he was far away. 

The next time Harry managed to take Eggsy out, it was to a restaurant where they knew Harry well.  It was the sort of place where Harry supposed Eggsy might make the occasional delivery of food- as he had been doing for Emerson on the day he and Harry met- but certainly wouldn’t have patronized on his own before, and Harry could see traces of embarrassment on his face when he considered doing so now.  But once they were inside, he changed his mind; Harry had negotiated a table for them far in the back, nicely tucked away behind a curtain so other sights and sounds wouldn’t distract either of them as they talked. 

It was easily done.  The owner was old friend, and seeing the fresh mark on Harry’s palm and wrist had made him more than willing to accommodate Harry’s every request. 

“Thank you,” Eggsy signed as he settled into his chair.  “This is nice.”

“Anything for you,” Harry replied as he did the same.  He almost regretted it, having told himself in the park- and several times since then- that he wouldn’t try to rush Eggsy into anything romantic until he knew where they stood, but then Eggsy only laughed like it was a joke. 

“I appreciate it," he told Harry.  "It can be tough, talking to someone in a crowded room.  And I… like talking to you.”

“As I like talking to you.”

Eggsy mostly signed but also spoke aloud if the mood struck him; Harry did the same to accommodate his own limitations, and together it seemed to form a single kind of communication- like nothing Harry had ever known and yet perfectly right at the same time. 

Harry ducked his eyes, now, and caught a look at the mark that went up his forearm, visible when he rolled up his sleeves- a series of abstract lines which reminded him of the park bench they had shared, with what looked like the little symbols from Eggsy's ugly jacket dancing like stars all around. 

On impulse he reached across the table to show it to Eggsy.  Eggsy wrapped his fingers around it and that, too, was a kind of communication they so easily shared.  In fact, it said more than words ever could, in any language. 

But before Eggsy could make any more involved reply- before a waiter could even come to take their order- Merlin’s voice came in over Harry’s comm.  “Sorry to interrupt,” he said, and though it was jarring he did sound genuinely apologetic.

Harry felt himself in a difficult situation.  It would be rude to try to talk to Merlin without first explaining what he was doing to Eggsy, foolish to assume that he wouldn’t notice even if he couldn’t properly make it out, but Harry's bionic eye was difficult enough to explain without Kingsman.  That it allowed someone to see what he was up to at all times- that he wore a comm in his ear so often it was harder to remember to leave it out- that that same someone could speak to him through it whenever he liked- would be even more difficult still to explain.

Worse yet, more interrupted mornings, afternoons, evenings- possibly an entire lifetime of them- stretched out in front of Harry like some kind of miserable ocean.  He was going to tell Eggsy the truth about himself.  He was permitted to do so by the Kingsman charter, so there was nothing to stop him- not even his own long-held fear of having a soulmate.  Between his job and his age, there was little chance of him ever outliving Eggsy the way his mother had his father.  Harry confessed he already took some small amount of comfort in that, though he also doubted- even from their short acquaintance- that Eggsy would feel the same way once Harry did tell him.

The actual act of telling him, though- that would be no easy thing.

“There’s something I'd like you to see,” Merlin went on.  He was talking in the same way he usually did when Harry was in action and couldn’t answer.  He was talking like this was some kind of mission, and Eggsy some kind of mark.  “It isn’t especially urgent- just the progress we've made with Emerson so far, nothing ground-breaking unfortunately- but I would like you to take a look as soon as possible.”

As much as thinking of Merlin treating Eggsy like a mark made Harry feel uncomfortable and strange, it had one advantage- that Merlin did not actually expect any kind of response. 

But Harry felt the need to give one anyway- not to Merlin so much as Eggsy.  He decided what to do and then did it all in a rush: “There’s something I want to show you.”

Eggsy looked around.  “Now?” he asked.

“If that’s all right.”

Eggsy shrugged. 

It wasn’t a long walk from the restaurant to the Kingsman tailor’s shop, which was one of the reasons Harry so often ate there.  The shop was empty when he and Eggsy arrived, which Harry was glad of.  He didn't want Eggsy getting overwhelmed by curious agents.  Still, he was surprised that Merlin, having undoubtedly realized what Harry was up to, hadn’t sent up any kind of chaperone. 

But then, towards the back dressing room, Harry noticed Roxanne Morton sitting with her legs crossed reading a magazine.

The newest to their fold, replacing Agent Kay when he was killed in action, Roxy had had a soulmate die when she was even younger than she was then- which to Harry’s eyes was very young indeed.  The two of them had been childhood sweethearts, as she told Harry, but in the end there hadn’t been time to find out what their affection for each other might have grown into before he was killed in a car crash.  She seemed determined to live a good life regardless, and she certainly never wanted for bed partners, as far as Harry could tell. 

He introduced Eggsy to her: “This is my friend R-O-X-Y.”

“Hello,” she said to Eggsy, not signing.  It was- perhaps unfairly- refreshing for Harry to know something that she didn’t for once.  But Roxy did meet Eggsy’s gaze steadily, and she only broke it to glance over at Harry as he translated anything Eggsy didn't get first off- and even then it was primarily with her eyes.  "It's good to finally meet you.  I’ve heard good things."

“I haven’t heard anything about you,” Eggsy signed- his eyes sparkling, evidently teasing Harry- “sorry.”

Harry knew Eggsy was probably making him translate that to embarrass him.  Probably he deserved it.  “We work together.”

“As tailors?”  Eggsy glanced around the room.

It was difficult for Harry to tell whether Eggsy thought this explanation made sense, or if he was waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It was about to, in any case.  Harry checked once more that they were alone.  "As more than that.  We're spies.”

Eggsy was clearly full of questions, but it was Roxy who said, “Why don’t I introduce Eggsy to Merlin and fill him in while you go and see Arthur?”

“Arthur wants to see me?”

“Yes.”

Harry glanced at Eggsy.  "You'll be all right?"

Eggsy only nodded, still looking at everything with interest, but Roxy said, “We’ll muddle through.”  She produced her tablet for texting, and Harry assumed that they would be able to communicate well enough if it came to that.  Roxy was new, and thus would have an easier time explaining Kingsman, having so recently had it explained to her herself- Harry, on the other hand, had been keeping it secret for most of his life and wouldn’t know where to begin.

“Thank you,” he said.

She nodded and took Eggsy towards the lifts. 

Harry went upstairs to the dining room, where he found Arthur looking out the window.  "Is that your soulmate I saw out there?"

“Yes, Arthur,” Harry said.

That garnered a faint smile and wry look.  “No need for that.  This isn’t Kingsman related, is it?”

“I suppose not,” he agreed.  “Victoria.”

Victoria's ascension to the position of Arthur had been a rocky one.  With the new Kay's help, Agent Lancelot had foiled a tech billionaire's plot to eradicate a large part of the world's population in order to stop global warming, and all had seemed well- but then Arthur started... unraveling.  They found out later that he had betrayed Kingsman to Valentine, thinking he had backed the right horse.  Harry sometimes wished Chester King was still alive to live with having turned his back on the only real love of his life- but he had shot Harry, and Merlin had shot him. 

Victoria sent to replace him short term, but then she had never really left.

Her smile widened for Harry now.  She reached out and squeezed his arm gently.  “I’m happy for you,” she told him.  “Truly.  Though I am annoyed you used our resources to find him.”

“I’m happy for me too,” Harry replied, electing to ignore the long expected reproof.  Whatever other doubts he might have had on the subject, this was the truth.  He was a whole person without Eggsy, he believed that now as much as he had resolved to before they met, but meeting him had been like getting a book of translations- revealing parts of himself he had only half understood and had never been able to show to anyone else before.  "Is there anything else?"

She shook her head slightly but said, "How is the Emerson thing going?"

"I've found nothing new, but I understand Merlin has a few minor things to show me.  It's what he called me down here for to begin with."

"Then you had better get to it."

Harry nodded and took his leave of her.  He went looking for Merlin, and for Eggsy, who was indeed in the quartermaster’s wing with Roxy.  Merlin was wowing him with technology.  Harry noticed that the more people Eggsy had around him- three, now that Harry had arrived- the more Eggsy hugged that coveted position against the wall from which he would be able to see everyone.  He was in one place, though, where wanting to keep as much of the room as possible in his view wouldn’t seem odd to anyone.

“Stop trying to steal Eggsy, he's mine," Harry joked to Merlin, hoping to keep the mood as light as possible. 

“Make me,” Merlin replied, smirking.

“Very grown up,” Harry said, always happy to turn one Merlin's favorites back on him.

Merlin sniffed, but his eyes were smiling. 

*   *   *

“I like your friends,” Eggsy told Harry later when they were alone in Harry's office at HQ.  “Especially Merlin.”

“Oh?” Harry was only half teasing, for it was just as obvious that Merlin had liked him- and Harry was glad of it.  “He did rather put out the red carpet.”  It was rare that a Kingsman actually brought their soulmate to HQ like that, but not so rare that Merlin- who guarded his tech so jealously- hadn’t clearly been trying to make an especial impression.  Harry wondered why- he had no doubt Merlin was up to _something_. 

“I noticed- and it was nice.  One question and he opened up.”  Eggsy’s movements were wide too, marked by an enthusiasm that made it easy for Harry to put his suspicions aside for the time being.  Eggsy went on: "It was amazing!"

"And you're interested in computers, yes?"

Eggsy nodded.  He shrank into himself, just slightly, and Harry wasn't sure why.  Then, “Not everyone would assume that I could understand.  People think I must be stupid sometimes.”   

“Then ‘people’ are stupid,” Harry replied, though that was certainly something Eggsy already knew, intimately.  He had thought it ridiculous that Eggsy worked at something so menial as moving boxes, even before he had reason to believe Eggsy was good with computers, even before Merlin’s display today showed how technologically savvy he really was.  Now he couldn't understand it at all. 

“I know,” Eggsy replied.  “Still sucks.”

“Yes, I suppose it must.  At any rate, my friends hopefully-" Harry was cut off when Eggsy threw his arms around him and gripped him tightly.  Harry's arms twined around him in turn, almost automatically.  It was as if he forgot in that moment how to do anything else.  He finished with a clumsy, "know better," from behind Eggsy's head that would undoubtedly go unnoticed.  "What was that for?" he asked, later, when Eggsy had released him and would be able to see. 

Eggsy shrugged.  "Just wanted to."

Harry discovered that he admired that in him.  The parts of Eggsy which Eggsy himself held at a distance from Harry even now were conspicuous in comparison to the parts of him that were so open and giving- while in Harry such open and giving parts hardly existed at all.   

He was aware that at some point he was going to have to tell Eggsy the sort of feelings his touch brought out in Harry, the warmth beyond respect he felt when he saw Eggsy's enthusiasm and sweetness.  At some point he would have to know exactly where they stood.  Most of the time it was enough to just be close to him, but not all the time.  Eggsy was going to have to know the truth, and he was Harry’s soulmate.  Surely there was nothing Harry could want from him that he couldn’t learn to want to give. 

Eggsy drew back as suddenly as he had pressed close, and Harry remembered all his doubts so abruptly it left him reeling.

Meanwhile Eggsy looked around the office.  At home, Harry had his Sun covers; here, he put up any pictures or notes Merlin had given him concerning whatever mission was ongoing.  Eggsy had seemed to take all of this in stride very well so far, but something he saw on the wall finally made him stiffen.  He pointed:

“Why do you have a picture of him?”

Harry looked at the picture himself.  “I only half know who he is,” he replied.  The only image Harry had of him wasn't clear enough for even Merlin's state-of-the-art facial recognition to do much good.  That was one of the things Merlin had wanted him to know when he summoned him down here in the first place.  "He must be an associate of this man Emerson, but I’m not really sure where in the picture he fits.  Why?  Do you know him?”

“Yes.  He’s my stepfather.”  Eggsy’s jaw twitched. 

“I take it-" Harry considered- "the relationship is not good?”  Harry had suspected that much before, especially when Eggsy had mentioned every part of his family but that one. 

Eggsy shook his head hard.  “He’s the one who-” Eggsy started.  Then he stopped. 

“Eggsy,” Harry began, slowly.  “I know they are things you don’t want to talk about- to me, perhaps, or at all- and I don’t want to push you, but-”

“He did this,” Eggsy said, gesturing to his ears.  “I wasn’t born deaf.”  He gave a sort of unhappy smile.  “Bet you’ve wondered before.”

Harry didn’t answer straightaway, because he had and he hadn’t at the same time, and he wasn’t yet sure how to express that, not just in sign but in any language.  Eggsy had created a new kind of hesitancy in Harry, a new uncertainty, that those he worked with would undoubtedly find remarkable.  So he said merely, “Probably as much as you wondered about this.”  He brushed his fingers across the scar on his temple and around his bionic eye.

Eggsy smiled again, even unhappier.  “I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.”

As much as Harry wondered what else there was to it- and as much as he thought it might even be important to his current work- Harry still didn’t want to rush Eggsy, so he told his part first: “I was shot."

“Doing your spy stuff?” Eggsy asked.

“In a way.”

Again Eggsy's smile wasn't quite right.  “Was it a mastermind with a cat?”

“No.  It was a friend.  No cat, and he certainly wasn't a mastermind- since it was the plans he made against Kingsman going wrong that made him come after me when he did.”

“And you’re okay?”  

“I am now.  Bionic.”  Harry pointed to his eye and stepped a little closer to Eggsy.  He wanted to touch him, but Eggsy’s body language had been closed off since he saw that photo, so Harry had to settle for putting himself in a position where Eggsy might touch him the moment he wished to. 

Eggsy looked torn between concern and fascination.  “I should had thought when Merlin was telling me about your job that that could happen.  You getting shot at.  You getting _shot_.”

“And are you all right with that?”

“I guess I have to be.”

“But?”  Harry was sure from his body language that there was a ‘but.’

Eggsy's response was slow to come.  “My dad was a marine; he died in action.”

“I’m sorry.”  Harry must have known that intellectually, must have seen it in Eggsy's file, but it took on a new meaning now that he didn't enjoy.  His hands felt ungainly in a way they hadn't even when Eggsy was making him text. 

Eggsy tried and failed to look dismissive.  "I hardly remember him."

“Nor do I my father.”

Eggsy considered that.  “Did your mum marry again?" he finally asked.  "After?”

So they had come around to the stepfather again in this way, and again Harry wanted answers but decided not to rush Eggsy.  “She never could have.  They were mated, of course, and she was… utterly heartbroken when he died.  She never fully recovered.”

“Mine married again.  She wanted me to have a father.”

Harry could have guessed that that hadn’t gone as planned, even without the things Eggsy had already told him and the things he guessed beyond them. 

“He was fun, until he wasn’t.”  Eggsy was still for a while.  “He hit me before, but never that hard.”  As it always did when he was upset or nervous, Eggsy’s face and body language changed- but not as radically as Harry would have anticipated when he discussed such a thing.  Eggsy was, in a way, casual about this.  The notion that it was a simple fact of Eggsy’s life infuriated Harry, which didn't surprise him.  The fact that he had never been so angry in his life did a little, but perhaps it shouldn't have.  Eggsy was his soulmate, after all.

And learning this about his soulmate made him want to kill someone. 

“It was the first time I woke up in a hospital after.  Mum was sitting with me when I woke up.  I knew everything she was gonna say- how he was sorry, how it wouldn't happen again, how I couldn't bait him like that- so well I almost just nodded along, but… I couldn’t hear her.  When I missed that speech I was almost glad about it.  The doctors said I might get some hearing back, and I got enough that the aids do something, but..."  He shrugged. 

Harry nodded.  He had a feeling that the next time he was left alone to amuse himself he would do so by thinking about the various ways he would kill this man- Dean Baker was the stepfather's name, at least he had that now- if he could.  It would give him at least an hour of morbid entertainment.  “And you still live this man?”

Eggsy nodded in turn, beginning to look a little wary of Harry’s temper.  “I make myself useful.”   

“How?” Harry asked, careful to keep his face as clear of judgement- and everything else- as he was able.  It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Eggsy could be useful- he could see exactly how smart Eggsy was, how much he had to offer- but now he finally realized just how deep in the affairs of an obvious criminal Eggsy might be.  He needed to know everything if he was going to help him- and he was going to help him, there was never any doubt about that. 

“I was always pretty good with technology, but after-” he hesitated, hands jerking- “what happened I withdrew for a while.  Code made sense when nothing else did."  Eggsy sounded almost wistful then, and Harry understood that- he knew what it was to find your place in the world, and he knew what it was to learn that even that could turn incredibly sour- which Harry immediately knew that it had when Eggsy went on.  “But when Dean figured out how good I was, he had... an idea.”  

"Tell me."  Harry kept his face as kind as he could, his motions as gentle. 

"He sells this... program that people can use to buy and sell things.  Send messages about drops.  Easy to use, but hard to trace.  I designed it."

It was time for Harry to acknowledge something that was becoming painfully obvious, something that should have been obvious a long time ago, if Harry was honest with himself.  He might have met Eggsy in Emerson’s orbit, and he might have been able to dismiss that by assuming that Eggsy was just a worker, not someone who really knew Emerson or his habits, but the stepfather was a coincidence too far and Eggsy obviously knew it, was obviously doing everything he could to tell Harry without telling him what was really going on. 

"And Emerson is one of the people he sold it to."

Harry knew that he really should have expected this.  The coincidence of meeting Eggsy at the party- in particular when he wasn’t there as a guest there but as an employee- was sufficient that he should have guessed long ago that Eggsy at least knew something about Emerson and what he was up to.  Harry would never have assumed otherwise, except that he had liked Eggsy so much straightaway, and then Eggsy had turned out to be his soulmate and it was difficult to think about anything else.

Chester King was right all those years ago, Harry thought briefly.  Having a soulmate was a distraction. 

It was a distraction that Harry found he wouldn’t trade for anything in the world, even after this rather unpleasant revelation, but it was a distraction nevertheless.  

“You were helping him.”

“I didn’t have much choice!”  Eggsy looked angry.  His jaw was tight, his shoulders were squared, his hands were moving in such a sharp, emphatic way.  But behind his eyes Harry saw fear.  Desperation.  A need for Harry to still think well of him, to see this his way.

And suddenly all the energy to do otherwise fled Harry in a rush.  “I know,” he managed  Eggsy was a good person; whatever else Harry might have missed in their time together so far, that much was still obvious.  Of course he hadn’t had a choice.

Eggsy wavered, like he had been hiding behind his anger, like without it he would be lost and at sea.  Harry didn’t blame him for choosing to hold on to it a little longer- because that was exactly what he did, judging from the way his jaw set.  “Dean made me,” he said.  His hands knocked against each other; his gestures got smaller and his posture did too, like he wished he could disappear altogether.  Angry, yes- but scared too, so scared.  It was one of the things about loving each other so much, about needing each other so much, that was quite frankly terrifying.  Harry was probably the only person in the world who could reduce Eggsy to this, and they had only known each other for a little while.  “Between my mum and the baby, he could always make me.”

“I know,” Harry said again.  How much he felt for Eggsy would have alarmed him a great deal more if it wasn’t so clear that Eggsy felt the exact same way- in this, at least. 

“Not helpless.”  Eggsy was obviously still angry, at everyone and about everything. 

“I know.”

Eggsy seemed to run out of energy very suddenly after that.  He sagged where he sat.  “I should have done better.”

“No, he should have done better,” Harry said, moving closer still so that he could catch Eggsy in his arms the moment he thought Eggsy would permit it. 

Eggsy made a breathless sort of sound and then he closed the distance between them like a shot, slamming into Harry’s chest and wrapping tight arms around his middle.  Harry held him back just a tightly, stroking hands over his shoulders and running gentle fingers through his hair.  So much had changed since Harry brought brought him to HQ that it was almost like they were two different people.  But how much Harry liked holding Eggsy- that hadn’t changed, and he would hold him for as long as he could. 

Harry kissed his hair and then the scar at his eyebrow, fighting himself not to kiss his lips.  This wasn’t the time, and wouldn’t be even if he knew for sure that his kiss would be welcome. 

As it was, all he had any right to do was comfort Eggsy, so he turned to rest his chin against the top of Eggsy’s and just held on as if for dear life.

*   *   *

Eggsy spent the rest of the night- and well into the morning- telling Harry and then Merlin everything he knew about Emerson. By the time they got to the quartermaster's wing Harry had a pretty good idea of what had happened and felt he'd made peace with it.  Merlin, meanwhile, listened without reproach but without pretending Eggsy had done nothing wrong either.  Having known Merlin for most of his life, Harry understood.  Merlin was used to working with people who not only knew their own worth but patted themselves on the back for it regularly.  He would make a small exception for new agents and during the trials, and Harry suspected that the longer he knew Eggsy the more he would make an exception for him as well, because he would learn that Eggsy was special.  He would learn as Harry had that Eggsy would be the first to start a fight to defend himself, but also the last to protest when someone tried to put the blame for everything on his shoulders. 

For now, though, it fell to Harry to tell him that he had done well, and Harry intended to do it as soon as he got the chance.  For the time being, though, he simply signed, “Tell us more about these deliveries.”

Eggsy explained that he made fixes and improvements to the program Emerson used periodically, and delivered them via thumb-drive when he was done.  He produced one such thumb-drive and handed it over to Harry.  "He wasn't there all day, so I never delivered it.  I heard later that he did come, but that was after-" he stilled, glancing toward Harry and away again sharply.  "When I was busy.  He will ask again soon." 

“All those boxes,” Harry mused.  "They were just a cover for this?"  He held up the thumb drive.  He had to admit it was an excellent notion.  “Did you come up with that?”

Eggsy smiled- just a little sheepishly- and nodded.

Harry supposed he couldn’t have expected anything less diabolical of his soulmate.   And it was a little amusing- and a little sad- to realize that while he had been wringing his hands about Kingsman and his own secrets, Eggsy must have been wondering when and how he would tell Harry about his life of crime. 

"Tell us when Emerson gives you a new time and place for a delivery," Merlin instructed.

Eggsy nodded again.  He seemed eager to redeem himself in Harry’s eyes- and just as clearly unaware that it wasn’t necessary.  Harry decided that he would have to find a time to tell him even sooner than he had thought, and if he didn’t get an opportunity naturally he would just have to create one.  

Merlin caught Harry's eyes significantly.  This new delivery point- wherever it might be- was their best chance to get something on Emerson that might at the very least put him in prison.  “Thank you, Eggsy,” Merlin said.  Good, that was good.  Maybe he was already learning.    

Harry gave Eggsy an encouraging smile as he said, “Can we talk for a moment, Eggsy?”

Eggsy nodded once more.  He looked a tiny bit wary, but he followed Harry out into the hall without protest.  “What is it?” he asked once they were alone. 

“Two things,” Harry told him.  “First, I want to thank you.”

“Merlin already did that.”

“I know, but I want you to know that I understand what you're risking, telling us all this.  Telling _me_.  It's brave and I'm proud of you."

“And… you’re not angry?”

“No.”  Harry kept his expression as gentle as he could.  “I’m not angry.”  For as long as Eggsy needed such reassurances, Harry intended to be there to give them.  “I know none of this is your fault.  I know you’re doing everything you can to fix this.  I know you would have done so long ago if anyone had bothered to give you the tools.  I know you’re a good person, and I know that is what matters.” 

Eggsy’s smile then was soft, and far too sweet.

Harry reached out for Eggsy, careful, and Eggsy met him hallway, gripping his hand hard.  And there was a moment when Eggsy looked at Harry and Harry looked back at him, and Harry thought that even though it wasn't really the time or the place, more might be about to happen. 

He was close enough to feel Eggsy's phone buzz.

"Text," he signed to Harry.  He looked faintly sheepish again. 

Harry nodded.

"It's Emerson," Eggsy told him a moment later.  "This is it."

"I'll tell Merlin," Harry said, though probably Merlin had been watching the whole exchange.  Eggsy gripped his arm before he could move away, though.

"Wait," Eggsy released him to say.  "What was the second thing?"

"Right.  Kingsman usually tries to let the authorities handle these people, if it's possible.  Your stepfather may be going to prison for a long time."  To Harry's mind it wasn’t as good as being the one to destroy him himself, but it was something.

Eggsy nodded, a little grimly.  That surprised Harry at first, given what Eggsy had told him about his stepfather, but then he remembered that whatever else Dean Baker was he had been a provider for that family.  Eggsy had grown accustomed to telling himself that they needed him.  That his mother and sister needed him.  “I guess I need to get a real job,” Eggsy finally joked. 

“Leave that with me,” Merlin said from the doorway.  Harry had no idea how long he had been standing there, but his expression was kind even if he would undoubtedly tease Harry later.

When Eggsy noticed him he managed to look curious, wary, and annoyed all at once.  Harry understand that; he didn’t want to feel like the subject of charity, didn’t want to be given anything he didn’t feel he had earned- but he was a Kingsman now, in spirit if not in name, and Kingsman looked after their own, wherever they came from and whatever they had done in past lives.  Harry could tell Eggsy a few stories about how Merlin’s tech had been used once upon a time.  Maybe that would help him get used to not being alone.  And maybe he could learn it, and maybe he wanted to, because he said, “Okay.”

Merlin smiled.

Eggsy still looked uncertain- and Harry understood that too, if only theoretically.  Eggsy didn’t completely trust Merlin yet, while Harry- Harry was so used to letting Merlin take care of things for him that he could hardly conceive of what it felt like to do otherwise. 

And so it was decided.  Merlin went back to his screens and Eggsy told Emerson that he would be at the address given- a warehouse- at the time suggested- only a few hours away.  “Let me help you out there, Harry,” Eggsy signed once they were alone again  “Please.  From here, if not out there.”

“How?” Harry asked, keeping his expression mild but curious- neither a rhetorical question nor an incredulous one.  Harry was sure that Eggsy had a plan and he wanted to hear it.  Eggsy had already done so much for Harry and for Kingsman both. 

“Can't I watch you?  Isn't that one of the things your eye can do?”

“Yes.”

“Then I can make sure you're safe.  I can make sure you don't walk into anything bad.” 

Harry thought about mentioning how he was always walking into something bad, but he decided not to.  He was used to this life- he had hardly had time to know another- but Eggsy probably still wasn’t.  Harry wouldn’t push him into an understanding that might still hurt both of them.  And Eggsy wasn’t wrong that his input would be useful when it came to tackling Emerson’s world.  Perhaps it would even be useful beyond that- perhaps that was exactly what Merlin had been thinking when he offered to help Eggsy find work- but for now Harry could think only of their immediate future.  He and Eggsy would have plenty of time to figure out everything else, as long as Harry didn’t get himself killed today. 

“Be careful,” Eggsy signed gravely. 

“I will,” Harry signed back, just as carefully.

For a moment, neither of them moved- less out of any residual hesitancy than out of a desire to stretch the moment out between them a little longer.  But Harry was aware that eventually he would have to go- and eventually Eggsy would have to let him.

He nodded once and started to turn away.

“Wait,” Eggsy said, out loud since Harry could only half see him.  He caught Harry by the sleeve and pulled him into a hug.  Harry didn’t think he had ever been held so tightly in his life, nor did he expect he ever would again.  And yes, Harry still liked that feeling very much indeed.  Too much, perhaps.  He kissed the top of Eggsy’s head once more for that day and then gently pulled away from him before he could do more.  And he would talk to Eggsy, soon- but for now he had work to do.     

Harry carried that thought with him as he followed Eggsy’s directions to his van and drove it to the warehouse where Eggsy's latest drop was to be made.  It was a bleak, grimy sort of place- utterly empty as far as Harry could see.  As he looked out across concrete and darkness, Harry remembered how he had wanted to go after Emerson in just such a warehouse when all this began.  And he wondered what it would have been like to stumble on Eggsy in a place like this, instead of that party.  If he had-

If he had, he would still have loved him.  He would always have loved him.

That said, the warehouse was dreadful.

He sat in Eggsy's van a while, waiting for something to happen, but something never did.  "Galahad," he heard Merlin say- then nothing for a silence that seemed to stretch for a million years- then- "Get out of there."

Harry knew better than to ask questions when Merlin took that tone.  He did as Merlin said. 

*   *   *

“What made you pull me out?” Harry asked later. 

“It was on Eggsy's advice, in fact,” Merlin told him.  “He was worried that Emerson might be up to something, and he was right."  Merlin pulled up some files on the screen to illustrate. 

“Emerson blew up the warehouse?”

“That’s right.  About five minutes after you left it.”

“That seems… extreme.”

“That is hilarious coming from you.”  Merlin pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose primly.  “Let me take you mind back to the warehouse difficulties which kept our friend Emerson from his party the day you met Eggsy.”

“I thought you said he made it after all.”

“He did- more on that later.  Suffice it to say it was not the first time in the last few months that Emerson had problems with a shipment.”

“Someone other than us had been after him,” Harry said, thinking aloud.

“Just so.  Some rival gun dealers, I believe.  At any rate, Emerson evidently wasn’t sure who to trust any longer, but he hadn’t decided what to do about it.”

“Blowing up his own warehouse seems pretty decided.”

“Indeed, but as you mentioned Emerson did make it to that party after all.  Where he met her.”  He pulled up another file, one which included the picture of a woman Harry recognized. 

“I met her too," Harry said.  "We talked by the buffet table."

"I recall."

"I liked her."

"Yes, well- Eggsy notwithstanding, Harry, you have terrible taste."

"Why?  Who is she?"

" _That_ is Mr. Emerson's soulmate."

Harry wondered for several moments if she had been lying to him when they met- and, if so, _why_ before he realized: "Emerson found his soulmate at his own ridiculous party."  And perhaps Merlin was right and he did have terrible taste, but Harry found himself looking back on their meeting fondly.  He was even happy for her, even though she and her soulmate would most likely both be in prison very soon.  Of course, it was the law that soulmates couldn't be kept apart for too long; at least this way they would be able to see each other.  

Merlin nodded.  "She may have seemed harmless, but she's a vicious piece of work.  Having finally found the one for her, she didn't intend to lose him to rivals.  She's the one who convinced him to take such drastic action against the person he suspected."

"Eggsy."  Harry's fond feelings didn't evaporate, as such, but they certainly lessened. 

"Right.  Kay was on Emerson's tail the whole time.  Eggsy was watching through her glasses as well as your eye when Emerson made a call to one of his associates.  From his behavior, Eggsy guessed that something had indeed gone wrong."

“It can’t have been easy for Roxy, getting close enough for Eggsy to read his face that well.”

“It wasn’t, but she managed it.  She and Eggsy work well together.  I think there could be quite the friendship waiting in the wings.”

Harry was happy for Eggsy, and for their new Kay.  He was already sure that Eggsy was a good friend- and he felt similarly about Roxy Morton.  Both of them could do with someone like the other.  “And Eggsy could tell just from looking at Emerson that something had gone wrong with the drop?”  Harry shook his head to himself.  “He must have gotten very good at it- reading Emerson.”

“I'm sure he had to,” Merlin agreed, rather grimly.   "Working for a man like that."

As he always did when he thought about all the things Eggsy had had to do to survive, Harry ached inside.  It was something to know that Merlin felt similarly.  But it wasn’t much, not after what had just happened.  If anything, Harry was most upset that they had tried to kill Eggsy, rather than that they had almost succeeded in killing him.

"I've been looking through that drive he gave me," Merlin added, almost conversationally.  "It's excellent work you know.  I may adapt some of it."

Harry nodded.

Merlin went on: “Kay is back to tailing Emerson, and we should have everything we need on him quite soon."

"Including why he suspected Eggsy to begin with."

"Yes, though I have a theory about that.  A little digging has proved that one person in Emerson's employ was getting paid a fair amount by someone other than Emerson- assumedly to betray him to the competition- but it wasn't Eggsy.  It was his step-father.  Since they started working for Emerson at around the same time, his confusion makes sense.  And Mr. Baker might certainly have encouraged him to suspect Eggsy in order to protect himself.  Kingsman should be ready to take down Emerson's organization- and our dear friend Mr. Baker into the bargain- before too long.”

Merlin sounded almost vengeful. 

"You really do like Eggsy," Harry said.  He had thought so before, of course, and it pleased him- but he was particularly struck by it just then.

"Of course I do.  Which is why I was a little surprised to find you two not as close as... one might imagine."

"Ah."  Harry considered that, considered how it might have been what Merlin had been getting at for some time.  "I've not been sure where I stand with him."

"One way to be sure would be to ask him."

Harry took that advise and promptly went looking for Eggsy. 

He didn’t have to look far.  Eggsy was sitting just outside the quartermaster’s wing, out in the hall.  He was on the floor with his knees crooked and his elbows balanced on them.  When Harry got his attention, he looked up with the most incredibly full expression Harry thought he had ever seen- it was a glare, but it was also so much more than that- and his eyes skittered over every part of Harry, as if he was trying to memorize him. 

"Not the best first mission you could have witnessed, but we'll get Emerson soon regardless.  So all’s well that ends well.”  Harry was shaken, more so than usual, and he knew that Eggsy would be able see that as he flicked through the signs- but he didn't know how to hide it, and he didn't suppose he should.   Perhaps it would be better for Eggsy to know all this was unusual for him too. 

“Is it?”

“It is for me.  You saved my life.”

Eggsy just looked at him with blazing eyes for a moment.  Harry wasn’t completely sure what he saw in Eggsy’s expression, he was sure only that Eggsy was struggling with it.  So much so, in fact, that he bent his head to his knees and hid his face altogether.  He lifted his hands only enough to sign, “If I saved your life, you needed saving.”

Harry kept still, feeling lost.  It was as if he’d been hung up on in the middle of a conversation, as if he’d sent a message over the comms and received no response.  All it took was Eggsy hiding his face, not looking at him, and Harry felt remarkably isolated.  Eggsy wasn’t looking at Harry because he wanted to shut him out, and it was working.  Harry had never felt so helpless in his life.  He hated it.   

Finally, slowly, Eggsy looked up again, and whatever he saw in Harry’s face made him warm a little.  “I can’t lose you.  I can’t-” Eggsy’s hands stuttered briefly and then he shot forward, gripping Harry by the lapels and hauling him into a rough kiss. 

Harry was caught too by surprise to properly return it, and before he knew it, it was over.  Eggsy was glaring at him again, but it was… sweet, somehow.  Harry was still so surprised that he forgot himself and simply spoke aloud: “I thought you-”

Eggsy’s eyes were fixed to Harry lips with more intensity than usual- not surprising, since he had just been kissing them- and now he looked confused, his head cocking to one side. 

Harry lifted his hands up and into the small space between their faces and signed _platonic_ , helplessly.  He felt clumsy and stupid in a way that he was quite unaccustomed to.  There was no doubt in his mind that Eggsy had wanted a soulmate and needed someone in his life who cared wholly for him- but it had seemed to Harry that perhaps Eggsy did not need him in... certain ways.  And mostly it had been enough to for him just to be close to Eggsy, to just be there for him as too few people had before- even if when Eggsy looked at his face or followed his lips he ached for Eggsy to do exactly what he had just done.  Kiss him. 

Eggsy didn’t say _that’s ridiculous_.  His face said it for him.  And then he closed the tiny distance between them to kiss Harry again.  He kissed him until Harry knew that he was absolutely right.  It was ridiculous.  He would have to do so much better from now on, wouldn’t he?

And yet, right then, Harry still wasn’t sure how.  For all the time they had known each other, Harry often felt as if he was stepping around Eggsy like he was that minefield Harry remembered joking to Merlin about the night they met.  Eggsy obviously hadn’t been expecting anything like this, anything like _Harry_ \- and whenever it showed Harry made assumptions.  Ridiculous ones, apparently.  And though Harry had been more than willing to wait for Eggsy, he had also been afraid.  Afraid that he could wait a lifetime for certain things, and still never have them.  He enjoyed getting to know Eggsy; enjoyed making him laugh, enjoyed trying to categorize the specific shade of his eyes, enjoyed learning his tastes and likes and dislikes.  But he knew that sooner or later they would have to face the fact that they were two very different people who might want very different things from each other.

Eggsy was a tactile person, frequently touching Harry's shoulder or taking his hand- or leaning into Harry's touch when he did the same.  And yet close on the heels of any thought that that meant something came the certainty that Eggsy was holding himself back somehow.  And while he would understand if Eggsy had the same kind of doubts about soulmates as Harry himself did- especially given the story he had lately told of his father’s death- Harry also wondered if it might not be something else. 

And now, with his lips still stinging from Eggsy’s kiss, Harry did not wish to make accusations or try to blame Eggsy for assumptions Harry himself had made.  But there was a reason Harry had made them, and-

Eggsy must have read it all on Harry’s face, he was looking at him so intently.  “I thought you were angry.”

“Angry?”  Harry was reminded of a conversation they had once before, when Eggsy asked if he was angry- but he had thought that concern was well dispensed with now.  "About what?"

“About-" Eggsy hesitated only briefly, and his jaw set- "me.”

Harry thought, briefly, that Eggsy might be talking about Emerson again.  But surely that was already asked and answered between them- and, more than that, surely Eggsy’s obvious distance was much older than any such concerns.  “I don’t understand,” he finally admitted.

“I didn’t know if you were angry that I’m not… more.”

“What?”

Eggsy got something wild in his eyes and he spelled, “M-O-R-E,” with his fingers even though he must have known that that wasn’t what Harry really meant with his question- but he wasn’t teasing Harry really, wasn't laughing, not at all.

“I meant what do you mean by ‘more’?”

Eggsy let out a long, rattling sort of breath.  “I would understand.  If you… if you weren’t happy about me.”

“Why?”

“Not because… not because of this.”  He indicated his ears.  “But I only had to look at you to know I'm not what you were hoping for at all.”

“I wasn’t hoping for anything.  Eggsy- you know I was there on a job, don’t you?  To look for Emerson, befriend him if possible.  I didn't care about anything else.  I didn’t expect-” again Harry felt the lack of his vocabulary in any and every language- “you.”  And perhaps his expression, his body language, said what words could not, because Eggsy brightened like a sunrise. 

"I know that now."  He kissed Harry again.  _I know that now._

 “Let me take you,” Harry started, and again he didn’t finish- nor did he really need to.  Eggsy’s expression said that he would follow Harry anywhere, and he followed Harry to his rooms in the Kingsman manor without another word. 

“Sorry,” Eggsy was saying as he hit the bed, hands knocking together, clumsy but oh-so-sweet.  “I was waiting.  Messed around now and then, but never anything… big.”

“Then I’m the one who should apologize.”

“No.  No, no.  You’re perfect, you’re everything.”

Harry repeated every word, over and over until he was sure that Eggsy knew he felt exactly the same way.  “Even if I had been hoping, Eggsy, I would have hoped-”

“Yes.  Yes.”    

For a while after that hands were left a little too busy for signing, mouths a little too busy for speaking, but that was all right.  There were plenty of other ways to communicate.

Like the way Eggsy peeled Harry's clothes away with such unimaginable reverence, kissing up his arm to his shoulder, where marks like flames already caressed across his skin.

Harry enjoyed touching during sex.  Not exactly an earth-shattering thing to like, but one or two of his past partners had certainly treated it that way.  Maybe it was because they weren’t mated to each other, maybe it was because the spy life in general tended to draw unsentimental types, maybe it was the adrenaline-rushed nature of nearly all his liaisons over the years- but too many of the people Harry had slept with before had seemed interested in touching only as much as was absolutely necessary for the act itself.  Harry wouldn’t pretend not to find such half-dressed yet pointed fumbling arousing in its way, but he preferred to take his time.  Preferred to map out his partner’s skin in meticulous detail, to feel a hand or mouth dragging along his skin in turn.

And Harry didn’t just enjoy it in this case.  He did his best to fix every moment of it in his mind, because Eggsy more than just touched him.  He made every caress feel like something bigger.  Like a conversation and a revelation at once. 

He touched every mark on Harry’s body.  He might have begun with those marks meeting him had left behind, but he didn't end there. 

“I love them all,” Eggsy told Harry at one point, pausing briefly to kiss the knot of scars around Harry’s temple.  “I love them all because you’re still here.  Because all of them touched you but you still made it back to me and now I get to touch you too.”

So he touched Harry some more.  And Harry might have been the one with the experience, but he didn't feel like it just then.  Eggsy's touches and caresses ran together, leaving him to arch and squirm as if he had never been touched in his life. 

“I want to touch inside you,” Eggsy said eventually.

“Please,” Harry replied.  By then his tongue felt so thick and sluggish in his mouth that of course signing was easier than speaking, even though his hands were shaking.  He lay back against rarely-used pillows and let his legs fall apart. 

Eggsy's ran gentle fingers over Harry's thighs before working them inside one by one in a slow, careful, passionate way that made Harry feel like he was being remade one touch after another.  Perhaps everything Eggsy did wouldn't have had such an intense effect on him if he hadn’t been so fixated on Eggsy’s hands for so long, but he had been and it did. 

And then Eggsy tapped his hip- just... checking in, Harry supposed- and Harry lifted his head with an effort to meet his eyes.  He managed a smile.  It had been a long time since anyone had fingered him at all, let alone with such intensity of care, but even if it had been only yesterday that he was last touched this way having Eggsy touch him now, would have effected him just the same.  That didn’t mean he wished any of this undone, even for the sake of his pride; he couldn’t imagine regretting something less.  Eggsy was the one who was meant to be able to take him apart like this.  Eggsy was meant to see it, and to love what he saw.

That thought made Harry tremble, and Eggsy stroked his hip to soothe him, which only brought him nearer the edge.  Harry reached down and gripped Eggsy’s shoulder hard, making Eggsy look at him so that he could say, “I’m close.”

Eggsy looked delighted, which Harry honestly should have anticipated.  He probably loved that he could make Harry come so easily.  Harry himself was a little embarrassed, but when he looked at the expression on Eggsy’s face he suddenly couldn’t find it in him to care anymore.  And then whether or not Eggsy liked the idea of him coming apart like a teenager didn't matter, and the fact that he was coming anyway did.

“Was that okay?” Eggsy asked when he caught Harry’s gaze again.

“Was it okay?” Harry parroted once he had the coordination to do so.  He teased: “I think you were lying about not doing this.”

“I wouldn’t lie about something like-”

Harry grabbed him and pulled him into a kiss.  Eggsy’s hands eagerly left off what he had been saying to twine around Harry’s neck and pulled him even closer, his cock rubbing up against Harry’s thigh.  Harry groaned.  It had been a long time since he was able to get it up twice in an evening, but at the feel of Eggsy pressed up against him his cock almost twitched, wanting more.

He reached out for Eggsy, still clumsy and trembling, not sure what exactly he wanted but sure that he wanted it right that minute.  He just wanted to make Eggsy feel good, as good as possible, and soon, as soon as possible too.    

He took Eggsy’s cock in hand, and Eggsy looked every bit as beautiful as Harry had thought he might when Harry stroked him to completion.  That was hardly a surprise, of course.  It was just a fact.

He kissed Eggsy’s forehead repeatedly, holding Eggsy close as he sank back into the bedclothes.

Harry dozed for a while, after, until Eggsy prodded him lightly in the stomach, seeking eye-contact that Harry willingly gave him.  “How could you think I didn’t want you?  I’ve been-” he formed a word Harry didn’t know, but understood the general upshot of- “for it.”

“It does seem silly now, doesn’t it?”

Eggsy nodded with a gravity that made Harry laugh, but his mood seemed philosophical.  “Do you wonder who’s behind it all?  Who picked me for you?  And why?”

Eggsy’s expression, body-language, and ease of motion suggested casual debate, so Harry kept himself still and casual too as he answered, “Other than the fact that I love you, I have no idea.”

Eggsy cocked his head to one side, as if he had been uncertain on subject still.  “You do?”

“Of course I do.”    

“Me too,” Eggsy signed.  He pulled Harry into a kiss, but that didn’t stop him from finding ways to repeat it.  “Me too.  Me too.”

_Me too._

*   *   *

The days and weeks that followed were the best Harry could remember spending.  Merlin had come to the conclusion that, between Harry's involvement with Eggsy and Eggsy's involvement with Emerson and his 'friends', Harry was too compromised to continue with the mission.  For once, Harry agreed wholeheartedly.  So Kingsman carried on without him, Kay working in the field and Arthur dropping the right words in the right ears, and before Harry knew it Emerson, his shiny new soulmate, and Dean Baker were all in prison.  Their respective organizations had been dispersed, and Lancelot was set to track down their various customers and suppliers on Kay's information, and all was right with the world.     

And all really was right with the world, because Harry got to spend that time simply getting to know his soulmate better.  Being temporarily out of work as he was, Eggsy frequently visited Harry's home.  Long nights went by just talking with the lights on.  Slow mornings passed in a haze of sleepy kisses. 

“I have an alarm clock that I keep under my pillow,” Eggsy told him on one such morning, sleepy-clumsy and sweet.  “Shakes and shakes until I wake up enough to turn it off.”

“That doesn’t sound very pleasant.”  Harry bent to kiss Eggsy's shoulder, where a bright mark like the sunrise had fitted itself to the hollow of Eggsy's collarbone.  Harry did that to every new one he found, and he was almost sorry to contemplate the coming day when there would be no new marks to discover.  Almost.  

“It isn’t."  Eggsy grinned hazily at him and added, "I like you waking me up a lot more,” before pulling him into another kiss.

Harry liked it a lot more as well, but- unpleasant or not- he was already thinking about getting such an alarm for the house so that Eggsy would never need to take his back and forth between them.  Although, he did rather hope that Eggsy wouldn’t be sleeping anywhere but with him at some point in the near future- the nearer the better, if he was honest.  “Shall I wake you up some more?” Harry asked before his hands could slip beneath the sheets to touch him. 

"Actually seems like putting me back to sleep."  Eggsy's grin broadened.  "Prove me wrong."

Later, after Harry had spent a while doing exactly that, he got up and wandered into the kitchen with vague thoughts of breakfast and discovered that they didn't have any food. 

"We don't have any food," he told Eggsy, and Eggsy laughed.

And between Eggsy's laugh, and the way that word _we_ felt on his hands, it was all the sweetest rush Harry could imagine. 

"Come along.  We can go shopping."

Ten minutes later, they were on their way to a little corner shop where they might do exactly that. 

Fall was in full swing by then.  The air was crisp and smelled of fallen leaves, Eggsy looked absolutely stunning in a scarf Harry had bought him a few days ago, and Harry rubbed his hands together a little as they walked side-by-side into the shop.

Harry had picked it because it was familiar, and he knew that it didn't get too much foot traffic at this time of day.  He also preferred small shops ran by people he knew because it narrowed the probability that someone would be rude to Eggsy there.  If that happened one time too many, Harry was a little worried about what he would do in Eggsy's defense.  There was no knowing until it happened whether Eggsy would be offended or impressed or a little of both- though, since Eggsy _was_ his soulmate, Harry leaned toward the last two- and Harry hoped to avoid such a display- at least for the time being.  

Harry very much liked the woman who ran this particular shop.  He liked to chat with her, and as much as he had enjoyed his time getting to know Eggsy even better, he knew he had let his other relationships go somewhat by the wayside.  Merlin was probably grateful, but Harry wanted to check in with her and see how she was doing.

Still, Harry hadn't planned to chat with her for too long- he didn't want to be rude to Eggsy- but then, after a short exchange in her birth language about her wife, the rest of her family, and the current price of fruit, Harry happened to notice the way Eggsy was looking at him.  He had thought the fascination in other people speaking foreign languages was largely auditory, but judging from the look on Eggsy’s face he had been wrong about that. 

Suddenly, Harry had a feeling he would be showing off to Eggsy that way a lot more often. 

When they returned home with their purchases, Harry had Eggsy's hand held fast in his, and he noticed that there was a notable glint still in Eggsy's eyes.  The moment Harry's front door shut behind them, Eggsy pounced.  

“Okay?  Is this okay?” Eggsy asked it in abortive signs, and in furtive and unsure touches that grew heavier the moment Harry signed back-

“Yes," and then repeated it against his lips.

Eggsy's touch was cool at first when his hand slid into Harry's pants.  Harry jerked, but in just a moment Eggsy's fingers around his cock became as warm as everything else about him, and the tenderness of his touch was a language all its own.  

“Christ,” Harry bit out.

He felt Eggsy’s laughter fanning across his ear, but when he turned his head to meet Eggsy’s gaze all his could see was the heat in his eyes, and all he could feel was the perfect tightness of his grip, and then Harry was spilling out across his hand and he couldn’t say anything at all.

Harry kissed down the side of Eggsy's neck, and managed, "I'll get you for that."

And then Eggsy was laughing again, but he didn’t laugh for long- not when Harry pulled their bodies together and started rubbing against him, hand shoving into his jeans as they kissed.  Eggsy squirmed, trapped like a butterfly between the palm of Harry's hand and the door, but by the looks of things he was not at all interested in fluttering away, and when Harry put just the right pressure on Eggsy's cock and at the same time sucked on Eggsy's tongue, that was it for him too. 

“I take it you enjoyed that,” Harry said, later, when he again had the coordination to form words.

Eggsy shrugged, slumping back against the door now and smiling the most content of smiles.  “You made it-" he hesitated, though only briefly- "So beautiful.  You make everything beautiful.”

“So do you,” Harry replied.

Eggsy was still for a moment, thoughtful, then- “You need to quit that.”

“Quit what?  Telling you how amazing you are?”

“Acting like I need it more than you do.”

Harry blinked at him.

“I do have-” Eggsy seemed to consider briefly- “issues.  But it was hard for you too, without me.  And  I’m here now, I don’t want to do this _I love you no I love you more_ thing every day.”

“Are you sure?  I love you.”

Eggsy laughed.  “I love you more.”

“No, I love you more.”

And Eggsy kept laughing and Harry kept kissing his neck, and he would do as Eggsy asked and try to relax a little, he really would- but just this once he didn’t want to stop.  “You’re such a loser, Harry,” Eggsy said, though what he said was Harry and not Harry at the same time.  Harry had noticed when Eggsy started using a very particular name for him a while ago- but something about that exact moment made it truly hit home for him: it was _mine_.  And not just any old _mine_ , either- one in particular. 

Names were a tricky business that way, Harry knew.  Eggsy had other names for him- teasing ones Harry had taken in stride quickly enough, and affectionate ones Harry should have understood better earlier, and angry ones that Harry had realized meant love- if not what kind of love- straightaway, but this one was special because it was, technically, altogether more common.  It was a term they taught very early on in sign language classes for a reason.  It was simply- broadly- the name one used for one’s soulmate. 

And there was something about the way Eggsy formed the word that seemed... big.  Bigger than language.  It was full of such awe, and at Harry, of all people.  Awe that _he_ was Eggsy’s, wholly and completely, even after Eggsy’s life had done its utmost to tell him that he didn’t get to have the things that he wanted.  The things that made him happy.  The things that he loved. 

So Harry did the only thing he think of: he taught Eggsy every word for soulmate he knew, shaped them with his lips and spelled them out with his fingers, and Eggsy watched every single movement like he wanted to eat Harry alive.  Still.  Always.  Forever. 

And sometime later that day, Harry found that every one of those words had twined together to form a spiral over his heart.

“You finished before me,” Eggsy said, flicking off the astonished signs between reverent touches against the new marks.  "Can't believe it."

“I can,” Harry told him.  He adored Eggsy, and he would be adoring Eggsy until the day he died.  All the years alone, waiting and telling himself that he wasn't, had suddenly seemed as nothing the moment he knew that he would be able to spend as long as he had left learning everything he could about Eggsy Unwin.    

*   *   *

On another morning just like all the others- exactly the same in the ways that counted, but full of surprises nevertheless- Harry was making breakfast when he received a message from Merlin. 

There was one thing Harry didn't like about Merlin using his eye the same way he always had the glasses- beyond the obvious privacy concerns, of course, although those didn't bother Harry overmuch when there was nothing he had or could do that Merlin hadn't seen before and Eggsy either wasn’t bothered or hadn’t altogether thought through the implications yet- was when Merlin sent him a message with it.  However long he had the eye, it would always be strange to find words, bright green and urgent, flashing unexpectedly across one corner of his vision. 

The message said, _It’s ready_.  Then, a moment later, _Mostly_.

Harry glanced at Eggsy, seated on the kitchen counter beside him.  "Sorry," he signed.  "Message."

Eggsy frowned, looking toward Harry's phone, still and dark on the counter a little ways away from him.  "Where?"

Harry pointed to his eye, and Eggsy pulled a face that was so funny it made everything else seem perfectly all right.  Perhaps he had indeed failed to fully process what the eye truly meant.  Harry would remind him, if necessary- but if his and Merlin's plan worked out the way he hoped it would, he was unlikely to need to.  Eggsy would understand the scope of Kingsman's abilities very well indeed.  Harry picked up his phone and sent, _OK_.  And, _when can we see it?_

_Oooh texting_ , came Merlin's response, seconds later.  _I suppose I have Eggsy to thank for dragging you into the 21st century_?

_Hush_ , Harry replied.  _We'll be there soon._

_Very well._

"Merlin made you something," Harry told Eggsy once the quartermaster was gone.

Eggsy stared at him.  He had already been looking at Harry- he was always looking at Harry, looking at his mouth and his eyes in a way that made Harry feel as if no one had else ever really looked at him before- but something in his gaze changed then, intensified, locked-on like a heat-seeking missile.  It was impossible to tell if he was pleased, or something else.  Perhaps Eggsy himself wasn’t sure which of them it was.  “What kind of something?”

“Let me show you.” 

All the way to HQ, Eggsy seemed wary in a way that he hadn't ever since they first kissed.  What did he think he was dealing with?  A cochlear implant?  Better hearing aids than the ones he could get on the national health?  Harry would have hoped Eggsy knew him better than that by now.  Harry knew that if Eggsy had avoided such things thus far because of money, that was one thing- a thing that would be solved handily if Eggsy agreed to his and Merlin’s proposal, because then Eggsy would have the money and connections to do as he liked.  Otherwise it would be silly to think Eggsy hadn’t thought about it, hadn’t decided on his own what he wanted- and didn't want- a long time before he ever met Harry. 

After his injuries, Merlin had clearly wanted to put Harry out to pasture.  Harry knew that he would never completely know what it was like for Eggsy- he would never completely know what anything was like for Eggsy, not even now that his marks were finished, at least not without finding every possible way to listen to him for many years to come- but he did understand what it was to have someone else deciding what to do about you, someone who thought you weren't all there.  Harry had bitten Merlin’s head off for it, and Merlin had learned quickly not to go there again, which Harry supposed was the best he could ask for.  He wanted better for Eggsy, though- he wanted better for Eggsy in every possible way- and he hoped he would never be part of the problem. 

He reached out a hand, and despite his clear suspicions Eggsy still took it without hesitation.

It was a slow day at Kingsman HQ, which was good because Harry didn’t want Eggsy to have to traverse a crowd on a day like this one.  He was already off balance enough as it was, though hopefully that would change very soon. 

“This is the job Merlin has been working on ever since you mentioned that you would need one,” Harry told Eggsy, sitting him down in the chair in front of one of Merlin’s computers and turning it on. 

"You mean working for Kingsman?"

"Exactly."  None of the work Merlin had done with this particular computer was actually earth shattering, but it _was_ Merlin’s work, so of course it had its own special panache.  It hadn’t taken much to alter technology that already existed, both in Kingsman and for the deaf community, to fit the machine to Eggsy's specific skills and requirements most elegantly.  “The pay would be good, and there would be a house attached.”

"Do I need a house?" Eggsy asked, glancing away from the computer to sign it to Harry.  His doubtful expression made his meaning very clear.  Did he need a house other than Harry’s?

“No, not if you want to stay with me.  But you might like to give your mother and sister a better place.  With your stepfather gone, that is.  And it would be close to my home.”

“I did like that park.  So would Daisy."

Eggsy was trying to be coy, casual, but Harry could see that he was excited.  That he was happy.  Though he was a perfectly efficient typist, the computer could also read both Harry's speech and Eggsy's signs and translate them to words on the screen.  “You could help me,” Harry said- out loud, just to demonstrate.  “Or one of the others, if you preferred.  Recent events- not just my last mission, but also the one where the agent we called Kay before Roxy was killed- have suggested a need for regular mission handlers, something we’re not at all staffed for at the moment.  But you know about us already, and you're a natural at it besides.  I..."  After everything they had been through, and everything they had said to each other, this was still a heavy admission to Harry- but one that he was more than willing to make.  "I like having you look out for me."

Eggsy could see it on his lips and then read it on the screen- but Harry signed too for good measure.  Eggsy grinned at him broadly. 

“I know Roxy would feel the same way, and Lancelot too.  And the others will learn to like the idea, if we all do.  What do you think?”

Eggsy reached up, fingers darting even faster than usual to wrap around Harry’s tie and tug him into a kiss.

_Yes_.  That sounded like a _yes_.           


End file.
